1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to devices for the cleaning of the posts of electric storage batteries and terminals of battery cables.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
Various types of tools have been provided for the cleaning and/or shaping of the posts of electric storage batteries. Many of these, such as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,658,502; 1,692,911, and 1,741,531; have been combined with pliers or wrenches, which make them cumbersome to handle. They included scraper blades, secured to the handles or the jaws, to be pressed into engagement with the post being cleaned and then rotated to scrape the verdigris or other foreign matter from the posts. Plier-like devices, such as in Pat. No. 1,913,606, had the jaws made as scrapers or had scrapers attached to the jaws as in Pat. No. 2,405,680, or scraper blades attached to the handles as in Pat. No. 2,003,629.
Other types of tools such as shown in Pat. Nos. 1,710,127; 1,774,567; 2,204,516; 2,475,514; 2,562,136; 3,284,833 and 3,717,895, involved tools which could be placed over the posts and rotated, without the use of levers to exert pressure, to scrape the battery posts. Pat. 1,710,127 used brushes to do the cleaning. The others largely used a scraping action.
Pats. 2,562,136 and 3,717,895 in particular used a scraping action and these tools were used solely for cleaning the posts and therefore were not encumbered with parts which were used for other purposes.
Among the problems of the prior art was the fact that the tools had exposed scraping edges and required two different sized scrapers for the positive and negative posts. These devices were relatively large, taking up considerable space in a tool box and were so shaped that they did not fit in with the other tools and could not readily be placed in the pocket because of their shape and sharp exposed edges.